There are five south east states in Nigeria. Keep reading to discover how they came to being and the map of the individual states and the entire southeastern region of Nigeria.
The southeastern part of Nigeria is home to the Igbos, who are one of the 3 major ethnic groups in the country.
Nigeria contains 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Late General Sani Abacha was responsible for grouping those 36 states into geopolitical zones.
Basically, states with similar history and cultural heritage were placed in the same zone. In other words, location was not the only determinant factor for grouping those states.
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Southeastern states in Nigeria
The states located in the south eastern region of Nigeria include the following:
The total size of the entire region is 29,388 km2, which is the smallest compared to other geopolitical zones.
Map
History of the region
From 1960 to 1963 Nigeria had three regions: Northern region, eastern region and western region. From 1967 to 1976, part of the eastern region became East central state (present day south east nigeria).
In 1976, General Murtala Mohammed created two states from east central state namely Anambra and Imo.
In 1991, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida carved out Enugu from Anambra and Abia from Imo, taking the number of south eastern states to four.
Finally, in 1996 when Abacha came into power, he created Ebonyi state from Enugu, which took to number of states in the southeast region (also known as Igboland) to five.
popular city in the region include Aba, Abakaliki, Enugu, Onitsha, Awka, Owerri, Umuahia, among others.